LCC R7: All draws, but Adams misses golden opportunity

12/9/2012 – Although the round ended in four draws, it might easily have been otherwise. After a nice sacrifice of a piece for pawns, Carlsen seemed to have serious winning chances against Nakamura, but several inaccuracies later it was just a draw. Adams nursed an advantage against McShane into a winning position, but missed several chances and also drew. Round seven report.

The 2012 London Chess Classic is taking place in the Olympia
Conference Centre from Saturday, December 1st until Monday, December 10th.
Games start each day in general at 14:00h London time, except for round four
(16:00h) and the final round (12:00h). Time controls are classical forty moves
in two hours, then twenty moves in one hour and thirty minutes for the rest
of the game. A win is counted as three points, a draw as one, and a loss zero.
Tiebreaks: 1) number of wins, 2) number of wins with black, 3) result of the
individual game between the tied players. In the unlikely event that there is
still a tie then: 4) 2 x 15'+2" games, and if necessary 5) Armageddon game:
6'+2" vs 5'+2" with draw odds for black. If there is a tie involving
more than two players then the Rapid games will be conducted as a double round
all play all.

Round seven report

By GM Alejandro Ramirez

Finally – it had to happen. The board shows all draws, but the games
were fairly exciting. The spotlight was, of course, on the Nakamura-Carlsen game,
in which the world number one had an opportunity to extend his lead over Aronian/Kramnik
on the rating list even further. After arguably missing some chances, the peaceful
results allows Magnus Carlsen to clinch London with a round to spare!

Round 7:
Saturday, Dec. 8th, 2012, 14:00h

Gawain Jones

½-½

Levon Aronian

Michael Adams

½-½

Luke McShane

Judit Polgar

½-½

Vishy Anand

Hikaru Nakamura

½-½

Magnus Carlsen

Vladimir Kramnik (bye) – assisting
commentary

Hikaru Nakamura-Magnus Carlsen ½-½
An unusual opening decision did not work in Hikaru’s favor. The 2.c3 Sicilian
does not see much action in the top level of chess, but it is refreshing to
see it once in a while. Magnus was either not surprised or had great over-the-board ideas, as his unusual setup with Qc7 and Rd8 quickly allowed him to equalize.
A dubious move by the American allowed Magnus to sacrifice a piece for three
pawns and a whole lot of simplification, which resulted in an endgame that looked
very bad for the first player. An inaccuracy on move 23 allowed White back in
the game, and the position petered out into a situation where Hikaru’s
extra piece was worthless against Black’s kingside fortress of pawns.

This is the evaluation profile generated by Let's
Check: it shows you the values calculated by the most powerful machines amongst
the Playchess spectators world-wide while the game was in progress. You can
retrieve the full Let's Check analysis of the whole game – together with
alternate lines the engines were proposing – in this
PGN file.

After his piece sacrifice Magnus waits to see what Hikaru will do after
17...Nxb4

Carlsen and arbiter Albert Vasser watch as Nakamura plays 18.Rad2

Judit Polgar-Vishy Anand ½-½
Having scored only half a point going into this round, Judit was really out
looking for blood. She wasn’t looking for peace as she started out by
organizing a checkmate threat on Vishy’s king as early as move 12! However
the Indian’s defense was rock solid, and although maybe the resulting
endgame was microscopically better for the Hungarian heroine, her technique
was not up to par to put Vishy in any kind of real trouble.

Gawain Jones-Levon Aronian ½-½
Another f3 Gruenfeld led to exciting play as the young English player decided
to once against sacrifice material. The Armenian superstar was not to be distraught
by White’s trickery on the kingside, and eventually he decided to give
back the pawn to push White back. Some simplification led to a dead equal endgame
in which the players agreed to a draw.

Michael Adams-Luke McShane ½-½
If someone is thanking his lucky stars tonight, it is Luke McShane. After suffering
the entire game – and going from slightly worse, to much worse, to down
a pawn, to down a pawn and suffering a mating attack – he was able to survive miraculously. Adams repeatedly missed killing opportunities when he
started attacking with his queen and rook. He eventually let Black into the
game and McShane didn’t blunder again. An unbelievable draw.

The playing hall during round seven

GMs Stuart Conquest, Danny King, and IM Lawrence Trent doing live commentary
for the spectators in London as well as the live broadcast and the Playchess
visitors

Vladimir Kramnik, who had a bye, and Nigel Short do live commentary in the
VIP room

Daniel King: Play of the day (Nakamura vs Carlsen)

Andrew Martin Play of the Day (Nakamura vs Carlsen)

Live video coverage and commentary

Watching the games live

You can also watch the games with GMs commenting on the Playchess
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You have the usual Playchess functions, such as chat with other members or,
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Pairings and results

Round
1: Saturday, Dec. 1st, 2012, 14:00h

Luke McShane

0-1

Magnus Carlsen

Levon Aronian

0-1

Hikaru Nakamura

Vladimir Kramnik

1-0

Judit Polgar

Gawain Jones

0-1

Michael Adams

Vishy Anand (bye) – assisting
commentary

Round
2: Sunday, Dec. 2nd, 2012, 14:00h

Judit Polgar

½-½

Gawain Jones

Hikaru Nakamura

0-1

Vladimir Kramnik

Magnus Carlsen

1-0

Levon Aronian

Vishy Anand

½-½

Luke McShane

Michael Adams (bye) –
assisting commentary

Round
3: Monday, Dec. 3rd, 2012, 14:00h

Levon Aronian

½-½

Vishy Anand

Vladimir Kramnik

½-½

Magnus Carlsen

Gawain Jones

½-½

Hikaru Nakamura

Michael Adams

1-0

Judit Polgar

Luke McShane (bye) – assisting
commentary

Round
4: Tuesday, Dec. 4th, 2012, 16:00h

Hikaru Nakamura

½-½

Michael Adams

Magnus Carlsen

1-0

Gawain Jones

Vishy Anand

½-½

Vladimir Kramnik

Luke McShane

0-1

Levon Aronian

Judit Polgar (bye) – assisting
commentary

Wednesday,
Dec. 5th, 2012Rest day

Round
5: Thursday, Dec. 6th, 2012, 14:00h

Vladimir Kramnik

1-0

Luke McShane

Gawain Jones

0-1

Vishy Anand

Michael Adams

0-1

Magnus Carlsen

Judit Polgar

0-1

Hikaru Nakamura

Levon Aronian (bye) –
assisting commentary

Round
6: Friday, Dec. 7th, 2012, 14:00h

Magnus Carlsen

1-0

Judit Polgar

Vishy Anand

0-1

Michael Adams

Luke McShane

1-0

Gawain Jones

Levon Aronian

½-½

Vladimir Kramnik

Hikaru Nakamura (bye) –
assisting commentary

Round
7: Saturday, Dec. 8th, 2012, 14:00h

Gawain Jones

½-½

Levon Aronian

Michael Adams

½-½

Luke McShane

Judit Polgar

½-½

Vishy Anand

Hikaru Nakamura

½-½

Magnus Carlsen

Vladimir Kramnik (bye) –
assisting commentary

Round
8: Sunday, Dec. 9th, 2012, 14:00h

Vishy Anand

Hikaru Nakamura

Luke McShane

Judit Polgar

Levon Aronian

Michael Adams

Vladimir Kramnik

Gawain Jones

Magnus Carlsen (bye) –
assisting commentary

Round
9: Monday, Dec. 10th, 2012, 13:00h

Michael Adams

Vladimir Kramnik

Judit Polgar

Levon Aronian

Hikaru Nakamura

Luke McShane

Magnus Carlsen

Vishy Anand

Gawain Jones (bye) – assisting
commentary

The games – except for rounds four and nine – start at 2 p.m.
or 14:00h British time = 15:00h CET, 17:00h Moscow, 7:30 p.m. Chennai, 22:00h
Beijing, 01:00 a.m. Melbourne, 03:00 a.m. Auckland, 6 a.m. San José,
9 a.m. New York. You can check your location here.
Naturally the games will be covered live on the official web site (below) and
on Playchess. The games of round four begin two hours later, those of the final
round two hours earlier.

Links

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See also

9/26/2017 – The final classical game. The finals has been relatively sedate with three draws until now. But it could all end today with one decisive game. Ding Liren has the black pieces today. It's going to be an exciting game. Games kick off at 13:00 CEST (7:00 AM EST) with live commentary from Tbilisi by GMs Evgeny Miroshnichenko and WGM Keti Tsatsalashvili and live updates by our reporters Sagar Shah and Amruta Mokal.

See also

7/5/2017 – This is neither prank nor clever wording: Garry Kasparov will be playing in the official St. Louis leg of the Grand Chess Tour from August 14-19, 2017. Please note that this is the Rapid and Blitz competition, just as the ones held in Paris and Levuen these last weeks, and not the classical events. However, this is not an exhibition event, and will determine the official Grand Chess Tour rankings as well as FIDE ratings of the players. Here is the press release.

Video

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